


River

by SophiaCatherine



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Failure to Communicate, M/M, Past Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-21
Updated: 2018-03-21
Packaged: 2019-04-06 05:33:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14049999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SophiaCatherine/pseuds/SophiaCatherine
Summary: Len was only zero tolerance on a few things.





	River

**Author's Note:**

> Prompts: “It’s six o’clock in the morning. You’re not having vodka.” and “You can’t banish me! This is my bed too!”
> 
> See the endnotes for extra content warning.

“It’s six o’clock in the morning. You’re not having vodka.”

Mick clattered through boxes in a search for liquor, loudly demanding that Len give up the vodka.

Len turned away from him, gazing at the far wall of the warehouse. He stifled a flinch at every crash.

A successful job had turned into celebratory drinks with the crew. Len had stopped after two beers. Then he had watched as Mick kept drinking till everyone else had left or passed out.

Len got up from the table quietly, slipping out into the the space they were using as a bedroom.

Mick followed him.

Breathing evenly, Len sat down on the bed and started to take his boots off. He glanced up at Mick’s sullen, looming form. “I’m going to bed,” he said. “You can sleep this off on the couch.”

Mick glowered. “You can’t banish me! This is my bed too!” he yelled.

It was at this point that Len’s patience, which frankly up to this point he thought had been Job-like, ran out. He pulled his boots back on. Then he stood up and spun around to face Mick, jabbing a finger into his chest, even as the contact made his heart race. “ _Fine_. If you won’t get of my way, I’ll get out of yours.” He grabbed his parka and the cold gun, and strode towards the door.

“Snart!” Mick roared, as Len slammed the door behind him.

He didn’t feel his heart slow down until he was eight blocks away. Then he slid into an alley and slumped against a fence.

The silence flowed around him, as he remembered how to breathe.

* * *

Nothing, for three days.

He knew Mick knew where he was. They were only working out of two safe houses, and Mick would know he was unlikely to have gone far.

On day four, he came back to find Mick in the kitchen.

Len closed the door behind him, leaning against it and surveying the scene through narrowed eyes. Mick had two pieces of salmon in one pan and was sautéing potatoes in another. He didn’t look around for a long moment.

The tide of the silence rose and fell.

Eventually Mick half-turned towards Len, but didn’t look at him. “I can go,” he said, his voice subdued with unease and regret. “If you want.”

“No,” Len said after a minute. He sat down at the table.

Mick brought a salad over. His sleeve rode up as he leant across the table, and Len caught a glimpse of a new burn on top of old scars. He sighed quietly.

They sat at the table and ate, drowning in the swell.

Mick still wasn’t looking at him.

“Mick,” Len said quietly, at last.

“I’m an asshole,” Mick replied, so loudly and quickly that it sounded like a reflex.

“Well, yeah. Thought we’d established that before,” Len agreed, head tilted to one side, with a half smile.

Mick stared at the table, and the silence surged again. “Lenny -” he started eventually. He didn’t finish the sentence.

Len put down his fork. “How many things am I zero tolerance on?” he said carefully.

“The Flash’s rules,” Mick mumbled. “Not sleeping through planning meetings. And -” He shifted the food around on his plate.

“ _Yeah_ ,” Len drawled. Mick continued to look anywhere but at him.

Under another wave of quiet, Len reached for and let go of a dozen ways of explaining. All inadequate in the face of life experience. And not just Len’s.

He picked up his fork again. “Could use a little more dill,” he said.

Mick’s head jerked up, eyebrows raised. “When d’you last cook anything that didn’t come in plastic packaging?”

He shrugged. “Don’t have to be a chef to be a connoisseur.”

Mick laughed. The sound rushed over Len, warm and familiar, and too powerful to be reassuring.

In bed later, in the safety of the dark, among murmured  _sorry_ s, Mick let slip a “Just happens sometimes. Can’t help it.”

Len turned away from him, lost in a decades-old memory.

He let the silence flow impassable between them.

**Author's Note:**

> Extra content warning: brief mention of past self-injury.
> 
> Thanks so much to [jessicamiriamdrew](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessicamiriamdrew/pseuds/jessicamiriamdrew) for reading this over for me!
> 
> I love comments.  
> On tumblr [here](https://sophiainspace.tumblr.com/)


End file.
